Sanpuku Refuge
by Atomic Raven
Summary: Tosai Kosumo has lived a miserable life since he could walk. After his older sister Nagai gets Tosai out of there, she takes him to Hikarizaka in an attempt to give him a life he never had. For Tosai, the greatest challenge in his life is about to begin. CURRENTLY ON HOLD UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
1. Chapter 1

_Hey guys. __So I decided to go back to my first clannad story, but with many MAJOR tweaks to make the story more easy for me to write. Overall I have been busy with my own personal life, so I don't get much time on fanfiction._

_The main edits are:_

_-The Another characters are being removed from the story, this will make things a whole lot more easy to follow; hopefully.  
-I will be starting the story from the beginning with a new intoduction. (We will be seeing Tosai during his move from Kagoshima to Hikarizaka, as well as a new character).  
-I am open to suggestions on how I should improve my story._

_Since school starts next week Tuesday for me, I will not have much time for Fanfiction. But enough chit-chat, enjoy the chapter!  
_

* * *

It has been a long day of travel. First, a flight for the whole morning, then another flight for half the afternoon only to discover the train that me and my older sister have to take has been put on hold for the rest of the evening and will be boarding in the morning. I curse under my breath. The only reason I wanted to ride a train was because I would have gone thermal if I had to ride on another plane.

"Well, if things were any more misfortunate, I would be waiting for a delayed subway." I say to myself. My sister is currently paying for the tickets, while I sit in the many rows of chairs waiting for her. No one really likes an overprotective sibling, but my sister pretty much took me from my mother and father, who were considering a divorce order, so I owe her a lot. After 12 or so minutes, my sister begins walking to the exit. I quickly get up and follow her, clutching my heavy travel pack.

"Hey, are you alright?" My sister asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, why do you ask, sis?" I reply.

"You should know by now that I have a name, Tosai."

"Alright then, Nagai, why do you ask me such a question?"

"Just wanted to be sure if you were being depressed on purpose."

What do you mean?"

"Nevermind, it doesn't really matter." Sometimes my sister asks me the strangest of questions. Most of the time, those questions stay unanswered.

"So where are we staying?" I ask impatiently.

"Well I know a friend who lives here. We were dorm buddies in college." Nagai knew a lot more about these places than I ever will in a year. "She should still be living on the western portion of this town."

"Wait so you don't know if she still lives here?!"

"I'm just not sure."

"That pretty much means the same darn thing, Nagai!"

"Oh, I remember now, she gave me her cell phone number after graduation. Let me call her." Nagai immediately takes out her mobile and dials a number. She then heads outside, leaving me alone once again. After a minute or so, I pull out a picture from one of the pockets of my travel pack. It was a picture of me and my classmates from my junior year, mostly old faces I'll never see again. The doors open and Nagai enters. She takes a seat next to me.

"Well she doesn't live here anymore, but she said that she could drive us to Hikarizaka since she's visiting family here.

"But we're waiting for a train, it's a stupid waste of-" And as if on cue, there is a P.A. on the loudspeaker.

"Attention, the current train on hold, passenger train from Kobeni to Hikarizaka, is being delayed to a later date due to railway reconstruction. Thank you for your patience."

"So what other arguments do you have that would be considered valid?"

"Alright fine. It's still a waste of money though." My sister has little to no patience, much different than me. I still give her some slack, considering that she hears the word 'wait' very rarely. "So when should we expect your friends' arrival?"

"She just finished a lecture from her dad, so she should be here in a few minutes."

"Well a few minutes is much better than a few days," I think to myself; "too bad those tickets won't be of use to me and Nagai."

* * *

After waiting at the edge of the road for a solid 10 minutes, a dark-cyan Camry pulls up to the curb. The driver-side door opens and a woman emerges from the car.

"Hey Misae!" Nagai yells as she runs towards the woman and hugs her. I don't know this woman at all, but if this is the friend that Nagai was speaking of, then I can call her a friend as well.

"Hello Nagai! How have you been?" The woman responds.

"I'm fine, thank you!" Nagai responds. "How about you? What tales do you bring from home?"

"Well not a lot, I mean other than the job as dorm mother, things haven't changed much" Since most dorm mothers have short tempers and don't like being disrespected, it would be wise not to be rude to her, or I may get a sudden slap to the jaw. "And who might you be, mystery person?"

"This is my younger brother, I've told you about him."

"Ah, so this is Tosai." Says the woman. "My name is Misae Sagara, it's a pleasure meeting you." She holds out her hand for a handshake, which I accept.

"It is a pleasure meeting as well, Misae." I respond. After loading both of our bags into the trunk of the car, I get into one of the two rear passenger seats, while Nagai into the passenger seat up front.

"Hikarizaka, here we come!" Shouts Misae. The car comes to life in an instant, and before I knew it, the radio was playing pop music and the car was heading down the freeway. The last time I slept in a car was on my way back from a trip with my parents. Since I had been traveling all day with only short intervals of rest, a few hours of rest would be something I would need greatly. Without much trouble, my drowsiness finally catches up to me and I doze off into perfect sleep, with the sound of catchy pop tunes becoming more and more quiet.


	2. Chapter 2

The car proves to be a terrible place to sleep, as I found it rather difficult to stay asleep for even the shortest amount of time.

"Hey kiddo, you're finally awake?" Misae asks looking in the rear-view mirror. "You shouldn't be snoozing as we pass through downtown!"

"What?!" I shout as I look outside. Hikarizaka, or at least the center of the town, is a natural paradise of it's own. I could even go as far as saying how it looks like a miniature version of Kagoshima. With restaurants, stores of all kinds and plenty of lights. "It's beautiful."

"If you thought that downtown looked beautiful, go to Kabusawa park." States Misae.

"Where's that?" I ask.

"It's a few miles from the private high school." Nagai responds.

"Well I will need to know where this private high school is." I respond.

"It's just southeast of downtown." Misae begins. "It won't be very hard to find since your sister lives literally next door." I have heard Nagai saying stuff about me, going to a private high school for my Senior year and all that. To be honest, private schools have been a normal habit for me since my parents thought it was a better way of earning an education.

"Well, here we are! Home at last!" Nagai exclaims. The apartment which Nagai had told me about looks to be about five floors. I had kept my bag with me to use as a pillow for the car trip, which didn't work the best to my assumption.

"Well it's your home to be honest." I say. I yawn and get out of the car at a sloth's pace. After that, I walk towards the entrance of the apartment in a zombie-like fashion, with Nagai following closely behind. The sound of pop music begins to get more and more difficult to hear until the music becomes completely mute. After a while, me and Nagai reach the entrance to the apartment, which is opened by a doorman. What kind of apartment does my sister live in?

"Thank you, Takashi-san." My sister says to the doorman.

"Your welcome, Kosumo-san." The doorman replies. Me and Nagai begin a long journey up one floor to the first floor. It was so silent in the first floor hallway that even the drop of a pin could be heard.

"My apartment is just up ahead." Nagai says quietly. "Try to be quiet." I nod as a response and we continue walking down the hallway. Nagai stops at a door close to the end of the hallway, unlocks the door with a key and opens it. We walk inside, slipping off our shoes and placing them in two pairs.

"So this is your place?" I ask.

"Yup, I've lived here since college." She throws a blanket and pillow at me, which I catch with some difficulty. "Sorry, but I haven't cleaned the guest room, so you'll have the couch tonight."

"Fine." I say tiredly. After placing the pillow on the couch, I place my bag against a nearby bookcase. Finally, I lie down onto the couch with the blanket and close my eyes.

* * *

The late morning sun wakes me up from my slumber. My neck aches, not from yesterday but from the couch itself. The smell of breakfast lures me from the couch, onto my feet. I find myself walking towards the aroma, avoiding every obstacle in my way.

"The smell of Western cooking is both infuriating and delicious." I think to myself. A Western breakfast wasn't the only thing present in the apartment. I can hear _Pachelbel's Canon_, a German canon by Johann Pachelbel, at least that's what my sister told me when I heard it the first time. I sit at one of the chairs around a rectangular table.

"_Itadakimatsu_." I say while clapping my hands together. I grab three strips of bacon and a piece of toast. I spread a bright gold-colored jam along the face of the bread. Nagai walks in as I am taking a bite of the toast I have never seen her more frightened in my life. "Is something wrong, Nagai?"

"That jam..." She says before I cut her off.

"Do you want some?" I offer.

"...is worse than a grain of Ricin."

"What do you mean? The jam itself didn't taste bad or anything, in fact it tasted really good." After I say this, her expression changes from frightened to surprised.

"You don't feel dizzy?" She asks.

"No."

"No stomach pains?"

"None at all."

"Well that's weird."

"Why's that?"

"Last time I ate a piece of bread with that jam on it, I couldn't eat bread for a week, let alone look at bread." If bread was able to do THAT to people, then it would likely be recalled and taken off the shelves in a matter of a few days.

"Where did you buy it?"

"The jam or the bread?"

"Former."

"The jam came from a friend, some woman up north sends her this stuff yearly." This friend seems like another person I'll meet in the near future. "Hey, did you want to go to Kabusawa park after breakfast?"

"Of course I would!" Immediately I wolf down my bacon and the rest of the toast. "Lets go!"

"Now now Tosai, manners." Nagai says firmly.

"I'm sorry." I say as I clear my throat. "May we please go now?"

"Sure." I place my dishes in the sink, though I only used my cup to drink some water. I slip on my shoes and light jacket, tying the laces firmly. Time for another adventure.

* * *

Misae wasn't lying when she said Kabusawa park was gorgeous. The first thing I see when I enter the gates is a large fountain surrounded by a massive patch of grass, outdoor food tables and benches. The map I picked up from the entrance of the park said that there was a meadow of multicolored flowers. I wanted to see how beautiful the meadow was, so me and Nagai agreed on going there first. after a long time of walking and occasional short bursts of jogging, we reach a small hill overlooking the meadow. The amount of flowers out there was crazy.

"Legend says that when Emperor Meiji stepped upon this plain, thousands of flowers sprouted and bloomed immediately." Nagai says and goes back to looking at the meadow. "And when Emperor Meiji died in 1912, every flower withered and died; the flowers regrew the following year." A day in nature was something I needed to clear my mind. The rest of the time at the park was seeing deer, picking flowers along the trails, stuff like that. And when we got home, we had noticed that it was very late, around 3:00 PM. So far, Hikarizaka is a place I never want to leave. After seeing that meadow teeming with life in Kabusawa, I had left a lot of stuff behind me, such as my feuding parents. I don't know what I will have in store for tomorrow, but I know that I had a good day today.


	3. Chapter 3

**_Hey guys, yeah I know it's been a long while since my last post, but I am still alive mind you, I'm just relatively busy with school and stuff like that. Still! New chapter, so at least this absence is forgivable (maybe?)._**

**_I also must add my gratitude and thanks to all who reviewed chapter one and two! It's not a very large number, nothing ground breaking, but still, you guys reviewing my stuff makes me honored to be receiving your support! Anyway, without any further distractions, enjoy chapter three of Sanpuku Refuge!_**

* * *

A week after my day at Kabusawa was a surprise. It's Monday morning, I find myself sitting inside a noisy class. This is my second week here. Apparently Nagai was serious about sending me off to the private high school she was talking about. I had my head set neatly on the top of my desk, hoping that I could take a short snooze.

"Erm, Tosai-san, correct?" A quiet voice disturbs me however, and my plans for a brief slumber are ruined. I lift my head up to see a girl with short violet hair and light blue eyes.

"Yes that's me, what is it?" I ask. The girl hands me a sheet of paper.

"This is a schedule for your classes throughout all four semesters of your senior year." She says quietly. The girl is seemingly shy and nervous. "On the backside of this schedule is a map of the school."

"Thank you miss." I say. She smiles as a response and walked to the desk before mine. At that desk was a guy with rigid, navy blue hair who looked as tired as I am. The two talk for perhaps a minute or more until the teacher steps up to his podium; the classroom turns from noisy to silent in the timeframe of a few seconds.

"Thank you for your obedience." The man says. "Now without any further to do, we will continue at where we stopped yesterday." My teachers at Kagoshima were much different than how they are here. Let's just say that my old teachers had to use air horns to shut everyone up. Thank god that it isn't the same case here.

* * *

I had learned a week ago that the cafeteria is, and will be, the most crazy spot to go for lunch. However, in the school courtyard, every spot to possibly sit, lie down and even stand at are either occupied or are being saved by someone for a friend. After looking around the courtyard for a spot to eat at, it occurred to me that the tree seemed to be the only place to go.

"Who wouldn't want to eat lunch while being seated upon a tree branch anyway?" I say to myself. Thanks to my skills at climbing trees and knowing how much weight certain branches can hold, I am able to get onto a branch. It is very sturdy and high up so the leaves and other branches conceal me from view. I begin to eat the lunch I prepared for myself: ramen and a bottle of water. In no time I finish my lunch, with the only remnants of my lunch being an empty plastic water bottle. After I discard my trash by tossing it into a recycling bin below, a small book roughly the size of my hand drops into my lap. The book had a worn out leather cover with notable scratches and such. The book was a dictionary.

"What the hell is a dictionary doing up here?" I whisper. Upon turning to the front page, the very first thing I see is a short notice:

_"If found, please return to Kyou Fujibayashi. Thank you!"_

"Kyou Fujibayashi? Isn't she one of the class rep's?" I ask myself.

"Hey you up there!" A voice shouts from the ground. I look down to see two people, a girl and a boy. The voice was male so it was obvious to who called me out.

"Can I help you?" I respond.

"Just asking what you were doing up there." I pause for a few seconds before speaking again.

"I don't really know." I say. I was lying to them of course. "I just wanted to find a place to sit and then I saw this tree."

"You can sit down here with us." The girl offers.

"Is there any specific reason why?" I ask.

"You'll meet new people." The guy says. "Plus you will likely get in trouble for being up their." These two were, for some reason, determined to get me down from the tree. I sigh heavily, and with a bit of difficulty, I am down on the ground. I decide to sit down in the gap between the two students

"Hey, do you have a name or something you go by?" The guy asks.

"My name is Tosai Kosumo." I respond very quickly to his question. "What's your name?"

"Tomoya Okazaki." The guy responds.

"Nagisa Furukawa." The girl says her name in a whisper, but she is loud enough for me to hear her.

"Nice to meet you both." I say.

"Nice to meet you too, Kosumo-san." The guy says. He offers a handshake which I accept. "No offense, but you look like your from Tokyo."

"I'm from Kagoshima actually." I say. "Were you expecting me to be some sort of stereotype?"

"Not really." He says anxiously. "It's just that their aren't many city kids around here."

"I can tell." I wait a few minutes before I show Tomoya the dictionary. "Do you know someone named Kyou Fujibayashi? The book appears to be her's"

"Hand it over." He says. I give the dictionary to him. "I'll hang onto it and give it to her when I see her."

"Thanks." I say. "We should get to our classes; they'll be starting up again soon."

"Yeah, good point." Nagisa says while discarding what trash she had. "Okazaki, are you going?"

"I'll be fine Furukawa, just get to whatever class you're headed to." He replies. I could tell that he was skipping class, I could hear it in his voice, that certain tone which indicates someone skipping. Me and Nagisa head out for our classes while Tomoya stays at the tree.

"I wonder if he knows the consequences of skipping." I think. Regardless, Tomoya was right about getting to class soon. Shortly after heading out to our classes, the bell which signaled the end of lunch rang; I now have about five minutes to get to class. Hooray.

* * *

The afternoon rain made a tapping sound as it struck the classroom windows. With roughly ten minutes of class left, the teacher is allowing the class to talk and text. Their was no homework, just a simple ten minute time period for the class to socialize. I try to rest my aching joints the best I can, as well as trying to ease the pain of a very irritating headache.

"What a day it has been." I say to myself. My thoughts drift back to my morning at Kabusawa, then to the day before I left. That night was special because mom and dad didn't argue, they were silent at breakfast, silent at lunch and dinner as well. The sound of footsteps ends my crazy trance; the footsteps draw closer and closer until a figure stands before my desk. She was a girl, her hair is violet, as well as her eyes.

"Good afternoon, Tosai Kosumo; I have been told by the council to help you get settled into our school." She states firmly. "They mentioned that you were to attend Tokumatsu Private Academy in Kagoshima, but something came up a month before the year began."

"Yeah, was going to go, but my family's apartment was robbed, and my enrollment at Tokumatsu became unreachable." The girl looked disappointed, as if I upset her in some way. "Um, miss, are you alright?"

"Hmm? Oh I'm fine." She says while getting rid of her upset look. "It's just that, it must be terrible to have that happen to you."

"Tokumatsu is a good school with plenty of opportunities." I pause midway through my sentence to readjust my seat. "But the staff over there are the most rude in all of Japan. They're good at what they do, they're just rude most of the time."

"I've heard about that." She says while nodding her head. "I guess the school board doesn't seem to mind, cause they would have been fired a long time ago if they did mind" Just as she says that sentence, the bell for the final period ends, and we are excused to go home. Before it gets too loud in the classroom, I ask the girl another question.

"Wait, what is your name?"

"Kyou Fujibayashi." She says with a confused look on her face. "I'm surprised you don't know my name, even after being here for an entire week."

"Well, see you tomorrow, Fujibayashi-san." I say while grabbing my satchel.

"Same to you too, hopefully." She says while grabbing her own satchel and rushing out into the hallway. Just outside of the classroom, is a large and noisy mob of other students wanting to rush home; that's the same mob which I will have to join as well.  
Just so I can get home.


	4. Chapter 4

Great, my school uniform is soaked." I say to myself. My mind is set on only one thing: getting home. I stand under the cover of a tree, not the best cover, but better to have SOME cover than none at all. "Now what do I do?"

"Hey, what are you doing here?" Another voice, male. Shifting my head to my right reveals the mysterious person. He has blue eyes and blond hair, his height is roughly the same as my own. "School ended a while ago, and you're still here."

"No umbrella." I say. My head sit idle as the world goes by. "I'm waiting for the rain to stop."

"Here." The guy throws me something. I catch the object and quickly find out what it is.

"An umbrella?!" I exclaim while looking at the item, then at the generous soul who gave it to me.

"It's an extra umbrella." He says, taking out another one. "You can keep it."

"Thanks." My voice sounds disinterested, but I am actually very grateful for the gift. "Name's Tosai Kosumo."

"Youhei Sunohara." He says before walking down the path.

"You forgot to open the umbrella." I think. Nevertheless, I continued to observe him. Sunohara makes it a good third of the way down the hill before popping open his umbrella. At this moment, I have grown tired of being hit by water droplets and thus, I open the umbrella Sunohara gave me. With my satchel in one hand and an umbrella in the other, I begin walking down the path as well.

* * *

"Welcome home, Tosai. Your room is a bit clearer now." Nagai says, her expression changes rapidly at the sight of me, soaked from hair to socks "I told you so. Should've taken an umbrella on your way out this morning."

"I'm just glad to be home, and not outside." We both chuckle at my statement. I head for the guest room, which is just next to Nagai's room.

"If only it were closer to the dining room." I say tiredly. I open the door to the room and I see a bed, a desk with some untouched luggage on top of it and a swivel chair. On the corner edge of the desk is what looks like a photo; a photo of someone. I place my satchel down on the bed, sit down on the swivel chair and pick up the photo on the desk to better study it. The photograph is actually of two people, a male and a female child; they are sitting next to each other. The girl has a violin in her lap, the boy, a viola.

"Why does Nagai have this?" I ask myself. I turn the picture frame around, on the back is what I presume to be the names of the people in the photo:

"Right, Kosumo T.; Left, Ichinose K." I am unsure if this is honest, because photos of me as a kid are rare; so rare in fact, that I was unable to find a single picture of me as a child back at my family's apartment. After a few minutes of me pondering over what else the picture had to offer, I place it on a nearby shelf. The only homework I really have is a bit of history. Outside, the rain continued to pour from the clouds above the town. I could only see the road below me, a streetlight, a traffic light, the glare of cars and a red, yellow and green glow most likely from the traffic light. The headlights of a car reveal something I never expected to see, especially in a town like this.

"Is that, a box kittens?" I say out loud. My mother once told stories about her seeing kittens in boxes at the neighborhood she grew up in. She said that people who didn't love the kittens, or those who couldn't take care of them put the young cats in a box and simply left them by a street corner. Some kittens died from the cold or starvation, and it was rare for any of the cats to get some form of attention.

"Tosai, I'm heading out! I'll be back soon!" My sister Nagai says before closing the door to the apartment. With nothing else to do and homework due tommorow, I rush to the bookshelf in the living room, grabbing a history textbook and back to the guest bedroom. I grab a pencil and the homework from my satchel, placing both onto the desk.

* * *

My hand hurts from writing, but the homework is done nonetheless. I place the homework and pencil in my satchel. My gaze then directs me to the paint patterns on the wall. I get up from my chair, tracing the patterns with my pointer finger as if it were a brush. The pattern was very simple; diagonal lines of white paint with dots of white painted within the margins of each line.

"Amature pattern, but it's very well made." I say to myself. I feel as if I had seen the pattern before, from a house of an unknown location, or maybe from my grandparents home. Either way, wherever I saw that pattern first wasn't even remotely important to me. I sit back down in the chair and glance out the window. The box was still there, but now someone was kneeling before it. Surprisingly it was Sunnohara. He just sits in front of the box, petting the small felines until jerking his hand away sharply. He gets up from his knees, puts his hands in his pockets and walks away. I am left to wonder what had just happened, and also to determine if Nagai was home yet.

"Time to see if she came back yet." I think to myself while cracking my knuckles. I get up from my chair again and look around the apartment, and soon enough I find her sleeping on the sofa with a book covering her face. Such a sight made me snicker.


End file.
